With a Little Help From Friends — Old and New Ones!

Deciding to go to SxSW was easy. Well it was easy last summer when Sheila Scarborough and I had this master plan. I would go down to Austin and stay at her house. We’ve known each other since two days before forever . . . it seemed a logical next step — everyone says it’s the show for bloggers. Everyone seems to go there. It seemed that I should too.

Sometime in January, I started to wonder, why was I making this significant investment? Would it really help my business? Adding friends to my Twitter account didn’t seem like enough reason to melt my credit card for a trip to Austin. At best, my answer was nebulous.

I was torn. I saw serious potential, but I’ve also gone to conferences where no business happened.

Missed Opportunities and High Returns of Attending a Conference

I had to be sure before I registered that serious business conversations would happen. I needed a high return on my investment. The registration would be more than worth it, if I could grow my business and add more value to SOBCon08.

I realized the only way to ensure a high return was to plan one. Here’s how you might do the same when you come to SOBCon08 or any upcoming conference you’re considering.

Know what you’re investing in. Ask yourself these questions:

Is the value for me in the speakers? the workshops? the chance to meet other folks there? How can I make the most of those opportunities?

What do I want folks to know about me and my business?

What do I want to learn from the people there?

I knew I was going to SxSW to let people know about my business and SOBCon08. Just being clear on that made a difference. It affected what I put on my name tag and which business cards I took.

Touch base with people you want to meet and let them know why you want to meet them.

Know which sessions you want to attend. Every conference offers different value in content and session format. I knew that SxSW panels would be podcast later. So I carefully chose the few I really thought were important to see in person.

Simple enough suggestions, but I asked — lots of folks came without a plan.

Frankly I’ve had my share useless, no-return conference experiences. They make it easy enough to convince myself that I can’t afford the time and cost of any conference. One thing they have in common is that I was a passive attendee — not invested in my own attendance.

It’s the plan that ensures the return. Now I pick the conferences most relevant to my business. Sometimes I suffer a pinch of cash flow, but I make a plan to ensure a return on my investment. My business grows, my network gets richer, and my blog gets more traffic. The plan keeps me focused, organized, and feeling in control of capturing what I’m after.

SxSW was a high return investment experience. I had fewer than 50 conversations, but they were the right ones with the right people. I came home with two new clients, another sponsor for SOBCon08, and a new project that I’m working on. That would have been a lot of missed opportunities had I not made the commitment.

Getting a return on our investment is the core of business. Key to investing is identifying true opportunities. Without investing we’re just going, moving forward not growing.

No one can attend every conference. But when one offers real potential, it’s worth thoughtful consideration. With a plan, we can ensure a high return on our investment. Missed opportunities are expensive too.

How do you decide between the high returns or missed opportunities of attending a conference?

A Flexible Plan

When I booked to go to SxSW, I had a few considerations on my mind. My blog is the center of my small business . . . a small business needs to be open for the folks who visit here. Still, if I want myself, my business, and my network to grow and go deeper I need to be part of the relationships I care about.

Conferences do matter, especially to small business. For these reasons and many more.

Meeting the people we already know face to face deepens relationships that make doing business more meaningful and more effiicient.

Sitting in conversation with them allows us time to explore how we might align our mutual goals.

Interacting with new people let’s other folks get a real life, real time experience of who we are and give us a chance to elaborate on what we do. Nothing beats eyes on fire when we’re explaining how much a project has captured us to tranlate our investment in quality work.

Most importantly, if we want to grow our networks, we have to move to where we can interact with folks who don’t know us, but want to.

I went to SxSw with purpose — to learn more and meet more people. I’m bringing back more perspective, more clients, and more friends to interact with you.

I know a conference where you can do many of the same things. . . . it’s in May. Come to SOBCon08 with a purpose!

Leaving on Thursday

As you might know, I leave for Austin to attend SxSW Interactive tomorrow. I’ve been diligently working to get together vibrant content to keep this blog rolling while I’m gone. I’m delighted to say that

will all be here to offer perspectives on business that expand beyond where my brain usually goes. I’ve also got a few thoughts of my own in the queue, so that you don’t forget me while I’m down there.

AND I’m delighted to announce that

Chris Cree will host Tuesday Comments on March 11th!!

while I’m on the plane coming home.

With a jam-packed line up like this, you’re wondering why I don’t leave the blog more often. I know. I know.

I’ll be learning all that I can so that I can bring it back to you. If you’re going to be in Austin, twitter me: lizstrauss.

South by Southwest, SXSW, is a yearly conference in Austin, TX.serving the film, music, and interactice industries. The photo shows the goodies they gave out this year.

Guest Reporter Sheila Scarborough

Hi Successful Bloggers,

This is it, sports fans, I am Interacted out down here in Austin. The film and music festivals continue, but SXSW Interactive has wrapped.

There was a terrific panel discussion yesterday on the future of online magazines, or “branded content channels/BCC.” Blecchhh, what a stupid name — what’s wrong with “magazine” until something better comes along to explain this online hybrid (and BCC ain’t something better.)

South by Southwest, SXSW, is a yearly conference in Austin, TX.serving the film, music, and interactice industries. The photo shows the goodies they gave out this year.

Guest Reporter Sheila Scarborough

Hi Successful Bloggers,

To the regret of every geek within 200 miles of Austin, the online media/Internet buzzfest of SXSW Interactive ends tomorrow (although the film and music festivals continue. Party on, Wayne/Garth.)

There have been a number of interesting panels in the last few days, so I want to give you a Roving Reporter peek while you recover from Liz’s Virtual SOBCon.

** From a great David Shipley/Will Schwalbe panel on email disasters, the thought that “email problems are not a tech issue, but an emotional, anthropological and psychological issue. Mistakes are made in this medium by people who really should know better.”

Why?

The absence of tone in email encourages misunderstandings, so as an email writer, use more descriptive, clear language….make your emails come alive. It’s just good writing.

The speed of email encourages sloppiness, and since there’s no direct human interaction, you also get “disinhibition” AKA “cluelessness.” That ironically sounds like being drunk!
The medium also gives more opportunity for cowardly actions like firing people via email so that you don’t have to face them.

Good email? Short paragraphs, clear subject lines, good writing (even using emoticons to add flavor) and mostly, mindfulness. Follow the Golden Rule with email and you can’t go wrong.

** Random Twitter comment — “So I’m addicted to World of Warcraft. Drinking wine, twittering and playing WOW on a Saturday nite at SXSW — Help.”

** Gina Trapani of LifeHacker and Penelope Trunk (career advice writer) plus more awesome panelists with freelance entrepreneurship advice: Have an elevator pitch, which is just an answer to the question, “What do you do?” (And make sure that it makes sense; your mother should understand your elevator pitch.)[Read more…]

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